The Lord's intercessory prayer

This ends the conversation of Jesus with His disciples on earth.
In the following chapter He addresses His Father as taking His own
place in departing, and giving His disciples theirs (that is, His
own), with regard to the Father and to the world, after He had gone
away to be glorified with the Father. The whole chapter is
essentially putting the disciples in His own place, after laying
the ground for it in His own glorifying and work. It is, save the
last verses, His place on earth. As He was divinely in heaven, and
so showed a divine heavenly character on earth, so (He being
glorified as man in heaven) they, united with Him, were in turn to
display the same. Hence we have first the place He personally
takes, and the work which entitles them to be in it.

Outline and divisions of chapter 17

John 17 is divided thus: Verses 1-5 relate to Christ Himself, to
His taking His position in glory, to His work, and to that glory as
belonging to His Person, and the result of His work. Verses 1-3
present His new position in two aspects: "glorify thy Son" -- power
over all flesh, for eternal life to those given to Him; verses 4,
5, His work and its results. In verses 6-13 He speaks of His
disciples as put into this relationship with the Father by His
revealing His name to them, and then His having given them the
words which He had Himself received, that they might enjoy all the
full blessedness of this relationship. He also prays for them that
they may be one as He and the Father were. In verses 14-21 we find
their consequent relationship to the world; in verses 20, 21, He
introduces those who should believe through their means into the
enjoyment of their blessing. Verses 22-26 make known the result,
both future, and in this world, for them: the possession of the
glory which Christ Himself had received from the Father -- to be
with Him, enjoying the sight of His glory -- that the Father's love
should be with them here below, even as Christ Himself had been its
object -- and that Christ Himself should be in them. The last three
verses alone take the disciples up to heaven as a supplemental
truth. This is a brief summary of this marvellous chapter, in which
we are admitted, not to the discourse of Christ with man, but to
hear the desires of His heart, when He pours it out to His Father
for the blessing of those that are His own. Wonderful grace that
permits us to hear these desires, and to understand all the
privileges that flow from His thus caring for us, from our being
the subject of intercourse between the Father and the Son, of their
common love towards us, when Christ expresses His own desires --
that which He has at heart, and which He presents to the Father as
His own personal wishes! Some explanations may assist in
apprehending the meaning of certain passages in this marvellous and
precious chapter. May the Spirit of God aid us!

Christ's new position in glory: power over all flesh, the gift of eternal life to those given Him

The Lord, whose looks of love had until then been directed
towards His disciples on the earth, now lifts His eyes to heaven as
He addresses His Father. The hour was come to glorify the Son, in
order that from the glory He might glorify the Father. This is,
speaking generally, the new position. His career here was finished,
and He had to ascend on high. Two things were connected with this
-- power over all flesh, and the gift of eternal life to as many as
the Father had given Him. "The head of every man is Christ." Those
whom the Father had given Him receive eternal life from Him who has
gone up on high. Eternal life was the knowledge of the Father, the
only true God, and of Jesus Christ, whom He had sent. The knowledge
of the Almighty gave assurance to the pilgrim of faith; that of
Jehovah, the certainty of the fulfilment of the promises of God to
Israel; that of the Father, who sent the Son, Jesus Christ (the
Anointed Man and the Saviour), who was that life itself, and so
received as a present thing (1 John 1: 1-4), was life eternal. True
knowledge here was not outward protection or future hope, but the
communication, in life, of communion with the Being thus known to
the soul -- of communion with God Himself fully known as the Father
and the Son. Here it is not the divinity of His Person that is
before us in Christ, though a divine Person alone could be in such
a place and so speak, but the place that He had taken in fulfilling
the counsels of God. That which is said of Jesus in this chapter
could only be said of One who is God; but the point treated is that
of His place in the counsels of God, and not the revelation of His
nature. He receives all from His Father -- He is sent by Him, His
Father glorifies Him.* We see the same truth of the communication
of eternal life in connection with His divine nature and His
oneness with the Father in 1 John 5: 20. Here He fulfils the
Father's will, and is dependent on Him in the place that He has
taken, and that He is going to take, even in the glory, however
glorious His nature may be. So, also, in John 5, He quickens whom
He will; here it is those whom the Father has given Him. And the
life He gives is realised in the knowledge of the Father, and of
Jesus Christ whom He has sent. {*The more we examine the Gospel of
John, the more we shall see One who speaks and acts as a divine
Person -- one with the Father -- alone could do, but yet always as
One who had taken the place of a servant, and takes nothing to
Himself, but receives all from His Father. "I have glorified thee":
"now glorify me." What language of equality of nature and love! but
He does not say, And now I will glorify myself. He has taken the
place of man to receive all, though it be a glory He had with the
Father before the world was. This is of exquisite beauty. I add, it
was out of this the enemy sought to seduce Him, in vain, in the
wilderness.}

Christ's work, and its results

He now declares the conditions under which He takes this place
on high. He had perfectly glorified the Father on earth. Nothing
that manifested God the Father had been wanting, whatever might be
the difficulty; the contradiction of sinners was but an occasion of
so doing. But this very thing made the sorrow
infinite. Nevertheless Jesus had accomplished that glory on the
earth in the face of all that opposed itself. His glory with the
Father in heaven was but the just consequence -- the necessary
consequence, in mere justice. Moreover Jesus had had this glory
with His Father before the world was. His work and His Person alike
gave Him a right to it. The Father glorified on earth by the Son:
the Son glorified with the Father on high: such is the revelation
contained in these verses -- a right, proceeding from His Person as
Son, but to a glory into which He entered as man, in consequence of
having, as such, perfectly glorified His Father on earth. These are
the verses that relate to Christ. This, moreover, gives the
relationship in which He enters into this new place as man, His
Son, and the work by which He does so in righteousness, and thus
gives us a title, and the character in which we have a place
there.

The Lord's disciples in relation with the Father by the revelation of His name and Word

He now speaks of the disciples; how they entered into their
peculiar place in connection with this position of Jesus -- into
this relationship with His Father. He had manifested the Father's
name to those whom the Father had given Him out of the world. They
belonged to the Father, and the Father had given them to
Jesus. They had kept the Father's word. It was faith in the
revelation which the Son had made of the Father. The words of the
prophets were true. The faithful enjoyed them: they sustained their
faith. But the word of the Father, by Jesus, revealed the Father
Himself, in Him whom the Father had sent, and put him who received
them into the place of love, which was Christ's place; and to know
the Father and the Son was life eternal. This was quite another
thing from hopes connected with the Messiah or what Jehovah had
given Him. It is thus, also, that the disciples are presented to
the Father; not as receiving Christ in the character of Messiah,
and honouring Him as possessing His power by that title. They had
known that all which Jesus had was of the Father. He was then the
Son; His relationship to the Father was acknowledged. Dull of
comprehension as they were, the Lord recognises them according to
His appreciation of their faith, according to the object of that
faith, as known to Himself, and not according to their
intelligence. Precious truth! (compare John 14: 7). They
acknowledged Jesus, then, as receiving all from the Father, not as
Messiah from Jehovah; for Jesus had given them all the words that
the Father had given Him. Thus He had brought them in their own
souls into the consciousness of the relationship between the Son
and the Father, and into full communion, according to the
communications of the Father to the Son in that relationship. He
speaks of their position through faith -- not of their realisation
of this position. Thus they had acknowledged that Jesus came forth
from the Father, and that He came with the Father's authority --
the Father had sent Him. It was from thence He came, and He came
furnished with the authority of a mission from the Father. This was
their position by faith.

The Lord's prayer for His disciples as distinguished from the world

And now -- the disciples being already in this position -- He
places them, according to His thoughts and His desires, before the
Father in prayer. He prays for them, distinguishing them completely
from the world. The time would come when (according to Psalm 2) He
would ask of the Father with reference to the world; He was not
doing so now, but for those out of the world, whom the Father had
given Him. For they were the Father's. For all that is the
Father's is in essential opposition to the world (compare 1 John 2:
16).

The motives for the Lord's request

The Lord presents to the Father two motives for His request:
1st, They were the Father's, so that the Father, for His own glory,
and because of His affection for that which belonged to Him, should
keep them; 2nd, Jesus was glorified in them, so that if Jesus was
the object of the Father's affection, for that reason also the
Father should keep them. Besides, the interests of the Father and
the Son could not be separated. If they were the Father's they
were, in fact, the Son's; and it was but an example of that
universal truth -- all that was the Son's was the Father's, and all
that was the Father's was the Son's. What a place for us! to be the
object of this mutual affection, of these common and inseparable
interests of the Father and the Son. This is the great principle --
the great foundation of the prayer of Christ. He prayed the Father
for His disciples, because they belonged to the Father; Jesus must
needs, therefore, seek their blessing. The Father would be
thoroughly interested for them, because in them the Son was to be
glorified.

The circumstances to which the prayer applied

He then presents the circumstances to which the prayer
applied. He was no longer in this world Himself. They would be
deprived of His personal care as present with them, but they would
be in this world, while He was coming to the Father. This is the
ground of His request with regard to their position. He puts them
in connection, therefore, with the Holy Father -- all the perfect
love of such a Father -- the Father of Jesus and their Father,
maintaining (it was their blessing) the holiness that His nature
required, if they were to be in relationship with Him. It was
direct guardianship. The Father would keep in His own name those
whom He had given to Jesus. The connection thus was direct. Jesus
committed them to Him, and that, not only as belonging to the
Father, but now as His own, invested with all the value which that
would give them in the Father's eyes.

Oneness and its bond

The object of His solicitude was to keep them in unity, even as
the Father and the Son are one. One only divine Spirit was the bond
of that oneness. In this sense the bond was truly divine. So far as
they were filled with the Holy Spirit, they had but one mind, one
counsel, one aim. This is the unity referred to here. The Father
and the Son were their only object ; the accomplishing their
counsels and objects their only pursuit. They had only the
thoughts of God; because God Himself, the Holy Ghost, was the
source of their thoughts. It was one only divine power and nature
that united them -- the Holy Ghost. The mind, the aim, the life,
the whole moral existence, were consequently one. The Lord speaks,
necessarily, at the height of His own thoughts, when He expresses
His desires for them. If it is a question of realisation, we must
then think of man; yet of a strength also that is perfected in
weakness.

The sum of the Lord's desires -- the disciples' relationship to the Father

This is the sum of the Lord's desires -- sons, saints, under the
Father's care; one, not by an effort or by agreement, but according
to divine power. He being here, had kept them in the Father's name,
faithful to accomplish all that the Father had committed to Him,
and to lose none of those that were His. As to Judas, it was only
the fulfilment of the word. The guardianship of Jesus present in
the world could now no longer exist. But He spoke these things,
being still here, the disciples hearing them, in order that they
might understand that they were placed before the Father in the
same position that Christ had held, and that they might thus have
fulfilled in themselves, in this same relationship, the joy which
Christ had possessed. What unutterable grace! They had lost Him,
visibly, to find themselves (by Him and in Him) in His own
relationship with the Father, enjoying all that He enjoyed in that
communion here below, as being in His place in their own
relationship with the Father. Therefore He had imparted to them all
the words that the Father had given Him -- the communications of
His love to Himself, when walking as Son in that place here below;
and, in the especial name of "Holy Father," by which the Son
Himself addressed Him from the earth, the Father was to keep those
whom the Son had left there. Thus should they have His joy
fulfilled in themselves. This was their relationship to the Father,
Jesus being away. He turns now to their relationship with the
world, in consequence of the former.

The disciples' relationship with the world: set apart by the Word

He gave them the word of His Father -- not the words to bring
them into communion with Him, but His word -- the testimony of what
He was. And the world had hated them as it had hated Jesus (the
living and personal testimony of the Father) and the Father
Himself. Being thus in relationship with the Father, who had taken
them out from the men of the world, and having received the
Father's word (and eternal life in the Son in that knowledge), they
were not of the world even as Jesus was not of the world: and
therefor the world hated them. Nevertheless the Lord does not pray
that they might be taken out of it; but that the Father should keep
them from the evil. He enters into the detail of His desires in
this respect, grounded on their not being of the world. He repeats
this thought as the basis of their position here below. "They are
not of the world, even as I am not of the world." What then were
they to be? By what rule, by what model, were they to be formed? By
the truth, and the Father's word is truth. Christ was always the
Word, but the living Word among men. In the scriptures we possess
it, written and stedfast: they reveal Him, bear witness to Him. It
was thus that the disciples were to be set apart. "Sanctify them by
thy truth: thy word is the truth." It was this, personally, that
they were to be formed by, the Father's word, as He was revealed in
Jesus.

The disciples sent into the world: their mission and testimony

Their mission follows. Jesus sends them into the world, as the
Father had sent Him into the world; into the world -- in no wise of
the world. They are sent into it on the part of Christ: were they
of it, they could not be sent into it. But it was not only the
Father's word which was the truth, nor the communication of the
Father's word by Christ present with His disciples (points of which
from verse 14 till now Jesus had been speaking, "I have given them
thy word"): He sanctified Himself. He set Himself apart as a
heavenly man above the heavens, a glorified man in the glory, in
order that all truth might shine forth in Him, in His Person,
raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father -- all that the
Father is being thus displayed in Him; the testimony of divine
righteousness, of divine love, of divine power, totally overturning
the lie of Satan, by which man had been deceived and falsity
brought into the world; the perfect model of that which man was
according to the counsels of God, and as the expression of His
power morally and in glory -- the image of the invisible God, the
Son, and in glory. Jesus set Himself apart, in this place, in order
that the disciples might be sanctified by the communication to them
of what He was; for this communication was the truth, and created
them in the image of that which it revealed. So that it was the
Father's glory, revealed by Him on earth, and the glory into which
He had ascended as man; for this is the complete result -- the
illustration in glory of the way in which He had set Himself apart
for God, but on behalf of His own. Thus there is not only the
forming and governing of the thoughts by the word, setting us apart
morally to God, but the blessed affections flowing from our having
this truth in the Person of Christ, our hearts connected with Him
in grace. This ends the second part of that which related to the
disciples, in communion and in testimony.

The Lord's prayer for believers not limited to the twelve

In verse 20, He declares that He prays also for those who should
believe on Him through their means. Here the character of the unity
differs a little from that in verse 11. There, in speaking of the
disciples, He says, "as we are"; for the oneness of the Father and
the Son showed itself in fixed purpose, object, love, work,
everything. Therefore the disciples were to have that kind of
unity. Here those who believed, inasmuch as receiving and taking
part in that which was communicated, had their oneness in the power
of the blessing into which they were brought. By one Spirit, in
which they were necessarily united, they had a place in communion
with the Father and the Son. It was the communion of the Father
and of the Son (compare 1 John 1: 3; and how similar the language
of the apostle is to that of Christ!). Thus, the Lord asks that
they may be one in them -- the Father and the Son. This was the
means to make the world believe that the Father had sent the Son;
for here were those that had believed it, who, however opposed
their interests and habits might be, however strong their
prejudices, yet were one (by this powerful revelation and by this
work) in the Father and the Son.

Conversing with His Father: the glory He has given His Son

Here His prayer ends, but not all His converse with His
Father. He gives us (and here the witnesses and the believers are
together) the glory which the Father has given Him. It is the basis
of another, a third,* mode of oneness. All partake, it is true, in
glory, of this absolute oneness in thought, object, fixed purpose,
which is found in the oneness of the Father and the Son. Perfection
being come, that which the Holy Ghost had produced spiritually, His
absorbing energy shutting out every other, was natural to all in
glory. {*There are three unities spoken of. First of the disciples,
"as we are," unity by the power of one Spirit in thought, purpose,
mind, service, the Holy Ghost making them all one, their path in
common, the expression of His mind and power, and of nothing
else. Then, of those who should believe through their means, unity
in communion with the Father and the Son, "one in us" -- still by
the Holy Ghost but, as brought into that, as already said above, as
in 1 John 1: 3. Then unity in glory, "perfect in one," in
manifestation and descending revelation, the Father in the Son, and
the Son in all of them. The second was for the world's believing,
the third for its knowing. The two first were literally
accomplished according to the terms in which they are expressed.
How far believers are departed from them since need not be
said.}

A unity in manifestation in glory

But the principle of the existence of this unity, added yet
another character to that truth -- that of manifestation, or at
least of an inward source which realised its manifestation in them:
"I in them," said Jesus, "and thou in me." This is not the simple,
perfect oneness of verse 11, nor the mutuality and communion of
verse 21. It is Christ in all believers, and the Father in Christ,
a unity in manifestation in glory, not merely in communion -- a
oneness in which all is perfectly connected with its source. And
Christ, whom alone they were to manifest, is in them; and the
Father, whom Christ had perfectly manifested, is in Him. The world
(for this will be in the millennial glory, and manifested to the
world) will then know (He does not say, "that it may believe") that
Jesus had been sent by the Father (how deny it, when He should be
seen in glory?) and, moreover, that the disciples had been loved by
the Father, even as Jesus Himself was loved. The fact of their
possessing the same glory as Christ would be the proof.

With Christ to see His glory, a secret for those who love Him

But there was yet more. There is that which the world will not
see, because it will not be in it. "Father, I will that they whom
thou hast given me be with me where I am." There we are not only
like Christ (conformed to the Son, bearing the image of the
heavenly man before the eyes of the world), but with Him where He
is. Jesus desires that we should see His glory.* Solace and
encouragement for us, after having partaken of His shame: but yet
more precious, inasmuch as we see that He who has been dishonoured
as man, and because He became man for our sake, shall, even on that
account, be glorified with a glory above all other glory, save His
who has put all things under Him. For He speaks here of given
glory. It is this which is so precious to us, because He has
acquired it by His sufferings for us, and yet it is what was
perfectly due to Him -- the just reward for having, in them,
perfectly glorified the Father. Now, this is a peculiar joy,
entirely beyond the world. The world will see the glory that we
have in common with Christ, and will know that we have been loved
as Christ was loved. But there is a secret for those who love Him,
which belongs to His Person and to our association with Himself.
The Father loved Him before the world was -- a love in which there
is no question of comparison but of that which is infinite,
perfect, and thus in itself satisfying. We shall share this in the
sense of seeing our Beloved in it, and of being with Him, and of
beholding the glory which the Father has given Him, according to
the love wherewith He loved Him before the world had any part
whatever in the dealings of God. Up to this we were in the world;
here in heaven, out of all the world's claims or apprehension
(Christ seen in the fruit of that love which the Father had for Him
before the world existed). Christ, then, was the Father's
delight. We see Him in the eternal fruit of that love as Man. We
shall be in it with Him for ever, to enjoy His being in it -- that
our Jesus, our Beloved, is in it, and is what He is. {*This answers
to Moses and Elias entering into the cloud, besides their display
in the same glory as Christ, standing on the mountain.}

The righteousness of the Father

Meantime, being such, there was justice in the dealings of God
with regard to His rejection. He had fully, perfectly, manifested
the Father. The world had not known Him, but Jesus had known Him,
and the disciples had known that the Father had sent Him. He
appeals here, not to the holiness of the Father, that He might keep
them according to that blessed name, but to the righteousness of
the Father, that He might make a distinction between the world on
one side, and Jesus with His own on the other; for there was the
moral reason as well as the ineffable love of the Father for the
Son. And Jesus would have us enjoy, while here below, the
consciousness that the distinction has been made by the
communications of grace, before it is made by judgment.

The Father's name declared: His love to be known and enjoyed

He had declared unto them the Father's name, and would declare
it, even when He had gone up on high, in order that the love
wherewith the Father had loved Him might be in them (that their
hearts might possess it in this world -- what grace!) and Jesus
Himself in them, the communicator of that love, the source of
strength to enjoy it, conducting it, so to speak, in all the
perfection in which He enjoyed it, into their hearts, in which He
dwelt -- Himself the strength, the life, the competency, the right,
and the means of enjoying it thus, and as such, in the heart. For
it is in the Son who declares it to us, that we know the name of
the Father whom He reveals to us. That is, He would have us enjoy
now that relationship in love in which we shall see Him in
heaven. The world will know we have been loved as Jesus when we
appear in the same glory with Him; but our part is to know it now,
Christ being in us.